|
|
 |
A Brand Is More Than What We Tell People
by Chris de Heer
The American Heritage Dictionary defines brand as "a trademark or distinctive name identifying a product or a manufacturer." That makes sense if you're a cattle rancher and a brand is the mark you sear into your livestock. But if you're a company, product, or service, that definition doesn't capture the core value proposition associated with your brand, like Toyota's quality or Wal-Mart's low prices.
Taking a different approach, an agency recognized as a worldwide leader in corporate identity and branding defines brand as "the sum of all the characteristics, tangible and intangible, that make the offer unique." In other words, a brand is the mark and the value proposition. That's better, but what about the consumer? What is the impact on a brand when its reputation among consumers suffers?
In fact, many marketing and design firms fail their clients by relying on a definition of brand that excludes the brand's reputation among consumers. These marketers and designers promote branding as a process of improving the way we craft, communicate, and package what we tell people through logos, taglines, collateral, advertising, and the like, with little regard for the actual consumer experience.
A brand is much more than what we tell people.
David Ogilvy, the famous advertising copywriter and ad agency founder, defines brand as "the intangible sum of a product's attributes: its name, packaging, and price, its history, its reputation, and the way it's advertised." Yes, its reputation—the attitude consumers have about the brand.
If you're like most people, you've received at least one call from a market research firm asking you dozens of questions about your attitudes toward company X or product Y. It's fairly obvious why these companies are so interested: they believe that consumer attitudes are a critical measure of their success, and that their reputation is an integral part of their brand. A company can't escape its reputation by updating its logo or changing its tagline. Real branding comes from an organizational commitment to fulfiling its promise of value so that our experience when we interact with the brand is aligned with our expectations, fostering trust in the brand's promise.
Building a brand certainly includes setting an expectation for consumers by articulating a promise of value, but excluding the consumer's attitudes from the definition of a brand suggests that what we tell people has more power than it actually does.
|
